Healthy City Community Foundation, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, E-mail: mesik@changenet.sk

Your experience with the CFs and your professional relevance to the theme of CFs

Throughout his career, Dr. Mesík has been extensively involved in the development of the environmental movement and broader third sector. From 1982 to 1992, he served as chairman of the local branch of the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectors (SZOPK), later as vice president of SZOPK for international cooperation (1990-1993)). He later served as a trustee for the Institute for East West Security Studies in Prague and New York, trustee for the Healthy City Community Foundation, the first modern CF on European continent, was a member of the Grémium of the Third Sector (G3S) and worked at the steering committee for the 1996 SOS Third Sector Campaign. Among his other positions he served on the Advisory Board of the Community Philanthropy Initiative for the Open Society Fund in Bratislava, on the Board for the Slovak Academic Information Agency (SAIA) and for the Slovak Youth Foundation (part of IYF network). From 1996 to 2000, he has served on the advisory committee for the European Community Philanthropy Initiative with the European Foundation Center, Brussels. He also served on the steering committee for the OK 98 campaign for free and fair national election in 1998 and until 2013 on the Board of European Environmental Bureau in Brussels. He continues to serve on the boards of Ekopolis Foundation and Healthy City Community Foundation in Banská Bystrica.

In 2003 to 2008 period Dr. Mesík has worked as senior community foundations specialist for the World Bank in Washington D.C. During his years at the World Bank he worked on introducing community foundations to number of countries around the world, most actively in Moldova, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Thailand and promoting the concept in several other countries. He initiated formation of the Global Fund for Community Foundations in 2004.

Dr. Mesík was elected to the City Council of his home town Banská Bystrica in 1998 and to the Regional Parliament of Banská Bystrica region in 2001.

Since his return from Washington Dr. Mesík splits his time between fathering his youngest son Richard (born 2007), writing and lecturing and teaching about global development and challenges at Palacký University in Olomouc, CR and Comenius University in Bratislava. His lectures cover issues like climate change, depletion of natural resources (oil extraction economy, peak water etc.), demographic growth, food security, risk of re-emergence of infectious diseases, financial and economic crisis, social polarization and other.